


Just For Today

by boazpriestly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awesome Uncle Dean, Bisexual Castiel, Bisexual Dean, Genderqueer Castiel, M/M, Past Dean/Original Female Character(s), Past Dean/Original Male Character(s), Self-Indulgent Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boazpriestly/pseuds/boazpriestly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every year at midnight on October 31st, Dean Winchester and Castiel D’Angeles are reunited, but only until midnight on November 1st when Castiel must return to his own world. With only 24 hours to rekindle the longest relationship either of them have ever had, they master the art of making a single day feel like an entire lifetime, with hopes that one day they’ll be able to spend the other 364 days together too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just For Today

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will eventually be continued. I just don't know when.

Dean can hear them behind him, scuffing their feet across the hardwood floors as they gets closer. His heart pounds and he presses his back closer to the wall, inhaling deep and holding his breathe. He can't be found, not yet. Not when he still needs to get back to the base camp and steal the enemy's flag and rescue Captain Rogers.

Dean looks around the corner carefully, spotting the two creatures who've got him cornered. They've disguised themselves as humans today. The older one stands hunched over, her long brown hair hanging in front of her face as she growls and stomps toward Dean. The younger one crawls behind her; drool drips from his chin, soaking the front on his shirt and leaving a trail in his wake. Shit, Dean thinks. There's no way he's going to be able to get past them without them seeing him.

He looks around the room he's in, trying to find something that he can move in front of their path that will block them from catching him without making them cry, because as bad as their burning kisses are, their cries are worse. It's like a siren's call, their cries, meant to garner his sympathy in order to trick him into letting his guard down and forget about his mission. He'd fallen for it several times today already, and he was running out of magic flower band-aids to cover all the venomous kiss-burns they left on his skin.

“We're gonna find you,” the older creature calls out in a deep, syrup-thick voice. Its feet drag now, making Dean's heart speed up the closer they come. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Dean moves from the wall, ducking behind the couch his first officer, Prince Thor, had insisted on putting in the common room for when they had down time. Dean had thought it was ridiculous since they had almost no down time to speak of with the creatures always close by, but right now he could kiss Prince Thor for the addition – too bad the creatures ate him this morning.

Crawling slowly on his hands and knees around the couch, Dean tries to think of how he's going to get down the hall and to the back room where the creatures have Captain Rogers tied up. He peeks around the corner, like he did with the wall, and his heart soars. The creatures are gone. There's an open path! All he has to do is get up as fast as he can and run. He can do this. He moves around the couch and positions himself to sprint to the back room, but his mind hones in on the silence surrounding him.

Something is wrong.

The creatures are clunky, heavy-footed, and loud. The only time they're ever quiet is when they're sleeping, and even then they're snores can be heard throughout the compound. The fact that Dean can't hear either of them at all sends a new wave of fear through him. Run, Winchester. Get up and run!

Dean stands just as a hand grabs his ankle and sends him sprawling back onto the ground.

“WE FOUND YOU!” The older creature screeches.

“'EAN, 'EAN! POUND 'EAN!” the second one cries out as he claps his tiny hands.

“No way!” Dean shouts. “I'm gonna go get Captain Rogers and I'm gonna win this time!” He gets up quickly and runs around the couch, forcing the older creature to chase him. She moves to the right and Dean goes to the left, then she backs up and goes to the left, making Dean go to the right. They do their dance three more times, making the younger one laugh, before Dean breaks the routine and jumps over the couch.

“That's cheating!” the older creature shouts.

“All's fair in love and war,” Dean says. He races down the hall and slams face first into an invisible force field the creatures must have activated when he was hiding against the wall, sending him flying backwards. “ What have you done?” Dean cries, looking down the hallway with wide eyes.

“Doc Hudson made it,” she tells Dean with glee.“It's so you can never, ever win.”

Dean gets up and shoves his hands against the force field again, trying to to find some kind of error in the system that will give him temporary access or something; the wall is iron clad. “I'm gonna find a way in, eventually. I'm going to save my friend.”

“Nuh-uh, cause I'm gonna turn you into a frog!” The older one pulls out a wooden spoon from the belt loop of her pants and waves it in a circle. “POOF! You're a big ol' fat bullfrog now.”

Dean crouches down like a frog and hops three times, croaking as deeply as he can. The older creature giggles loudly, falling over and holding her belly. Her brother continues clapping as he chants, “Fog” over and over.

Dean is a frog for two whole minutes before the wand is waved again and the creature says, “Okay, you're a human again, Uncle Dean. I want to play something else now.”

Dean shakes his arms and sits down on his butt, stretching his legs out before leaning over and pulling his baby nephew into his lap. “What about Captain Rogers, though? He's still locked in the room. Are you gonna let me save him or are you?”

“I will.”

“As the creature or as Elaine?”

She scrunches up her face in thought and then says, “As Elaine.” Then she gets up and runs to the back room, returning a couple minutes later with a teddy bear dressed as Captain America, complete with a shield. “He's all saved now.”

The baby in Dean's lap lets out a huge yawn and then sucks on his tiny fist. “I think Levi is ready for a nap. Our next game is gonna have to wait,” Dean says. He cradles his nephew to his chest and then stands up. “Do you want to help me put him to sleep or do you want to watch a movie?”

Elaine looks at the TV and then at her brother. A smile spreads across her face and she fits her tiny hand in Dean's, carefully tucking Captain Rogers against her body with her other arm. “I wanna sing to him with you.”

Dean laughs a little. “Okay. What song will it be today?” They walk to the nursery hand in hand, Elaine tugging Dean a little so they make it to the room quicker. Levi squirms in Dean's arm and whines softly; Dean can tell immediately that the kid's trying to poop.

“Not Hey Jude,” Elaine tells Dean.

“Why not? I thought you love it.” Dean had been singing that song to her since he first learned Jess was pregnant with her. It made for an awkward conversation starter when people would ask why Dean was laying on his sister-in-law's belly crooning Beatles songs. But Jess had thought it was sweet and said it calmed her and the baby, and Sam just laughed and said that his wife loved Dean more than she loved him (which wasn't true in the least because no one loved Dean's geeky little brother more than Jess did. They were going to be that couple that died in a nursing home minutes apart from each other as they held hands).

“I do,” Elaine says. She climbs up onto the stool next to the changing table, carefully setting Captain Rogers at her feet, and adds, “It's Levi who doesn't like it. He wants you to sing Wild Mountain Thyme. It's his favorite.”

“His favorite?”

“Mm-hmm. He'll go right to sleep if you sing that one. But he doesn't for me, 'cause I never get the words right. 'Sa hard song to sing.” Elaine reaches up to grab the baby wipes from the shelf above the table, stretching up as much as she can and just barely touching the bottom of it with the tips of her fingers. Dean takes the box down and hands it to her. She grunts and crosses her arms over her chest, a deep-set pout on her face.

“I could'a gotten it,” she says.

Dean sets Levi down on his back and starts unsnapping his onesie. “I was only helping.”

“But I'm already five and I go to kindergarten.”

Dean keeps himself from laughing at her kid logic and says, “It's not a bad thing to need help sometimes, kiddo. Even I need help sometimes, like right now,” He makes a face as he opens Levis diaper and holds it closed again, quickly. “Oh dude, you could kill an army with that. What did we feed you today?”

Levi babbles and plays with his hands.

“You want to do the honors?” Dean asks Elaine, gesturing to the wipes.

She shakes her head hard, pinching her nose closed with her fingers. “No way, that's your job.”

“What? I thought you were gonna help me?”

“I will, after, when we're singing.” She smirks, just like Sam used to when he was weaseling his way out of doing something their mom had told both of them to do.

“How about we play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who does it?” Dean offers.

Elaine makes her thinking face again and then goes, “Sure!”

Dean holds out his fist and Elaine copies him. “Ready?”

She nods.

“Okay. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

Elaine throws rock and Dean throws scissors, the same way they always do, every time they play. Elaine laughs high-pitched and pumps her fist in the air. “Always with the scissors, Uncle Dean.”

Dean smiles and shakes his head. She is most definitely Sam's kid, he thinks.

Levi yawns again and starts to fuss, so Dean cleans him up quickly, putting on a fresh diaper and changing him into Dean's favorite onesie: a black Metallica one that he had found at some random thrift store in some backwoods town a few years back and bought just in case Sam and Jess decided to have another kid. When he's done he picks up Levi and holds the baby to his chest as he sits down in the rocking chair in the corner. Elaine sits on the ottoman in front of them.

“Are you going to sing the words with me or just hum?” Dean asks in a whisper because Levi is already starting to close his eyes.

“Hum,” Elaine says.

Dean nods and begins rocking back and forth as he starts the song. “Oh summer time is coming, and the trees are sweetly blooming where the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather. Would you go, lassie, go?”

“And we'll all go together,” Elaine sings softly.

Dean smiles. “Where the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather.”

“Would you go, lassie, go?”

They sing together, trading verses until Levi is sound asleep and Dean places him in his crib. He turns out the lights and leads Elaine back into the living room, making sure to grab Captain Rogers on the way out. Elaine yawns when they're both sitting on the couch. Dean looks at his watch, noting that it is well past her nap time.

“Want a movie?” he asks.

Elaine shakes her head and rubs her eyes. She yawns again. “Hey Jude,” is all she says, and then she curls up and lays her head on Dean's lap. He doesn't even make it to the second verse before she's out.

****

At half past five, Dean is in the kitchen scribbling down a short story he should've already written for the anthology his agent nominated him for. It's supposed to be horror; something he's good at writing, but all he can think about is the fact that tomorrow is Halloween, the least scary holiday of the year, for him.

“Don't break a blood vessel there, Dean,” Sam says, making Dean jump.

“Christ, Sam! When the hell did you even get here?”

Sam chuckles and Dean notices the paper bags full of groceries in his brother's arms. He walks around the island counter and takes them, setting them down near the fridge.

“Just a couple minutes ago,” Sam says once his hands are free.

Lifting his eyebrows, Dean silently asks if there are anymore bags in the car. Sam shakes his head and walks forward to pull Dean into a hug. Dean used to hate when he did that, called the hugs “chick-flick” moments and opted out almost every time. But after their mother died and Dean became Sam's guardian, hugs became the only thing that held the both of them together, a silent reassurance that the other was there and alive. Dean got used to them quickly and made sure he was always available for a hug if his brother needed one; Sam did the same for Dean.

“So what were you thinking about, just now?” Sam asks, pulling back to open the fridge and put away a jar of jelly.

“Horror movies,” Dean lies.

Sam huffs, not believing him for a second. “I didn't know Castiel liked horror movies,” he says. Leave it to him to cut through the bullshit and just go for the kill.

“He doesn't,” Dean tells him. He hands Sam a head of lettuce and a loaf of bread. “Except for Insidious. I keep telling him that one's crap, but he insists that it's better than anything else in the genre.”

“Even The Exorcist?”

“He laughed at it like it was a comedy.”

Sam turns to Dean with an eyebrow raised high. “Your boyfriend needs his movie tastes reconfigured.”

“Tell me about it. He friggin' cried when we watched The Hulk.”

“The TV Show or Norton?” Sam asks, reaching into the bottom of one of the bags for a thing of carrots.

“Bana,” Dean admits with a sneer.

“Oh dear god. That – there are no words for a tragedy of that magnitude.”

“Right? It like how the hell can you be so out of tune with what's cool? I mean – holy shit, are these for me?” Dean pulls out two small hostess pies, one apple and the other cherry, and holds them up excitedly.

“One is,” Sam says, holding up a finger. “The other is for Eli when she wakes up, whenever that is.”

Dean laughs. With how hard he and Elaine played today, he wouldn't put it past her to sleep straight through dinner.

“So, are you ever going to tell me how you and Cas met? I mean you've been together how long again?”

“Nine years,” Dean says. Nine long, fantastic years that would only be better if they weren't under such stressful circumstances.

“And you only get to see each other on Halloween?”

Dean nods as he rips open the pie package and takes a bite.

“Why? I mean, did he choose that or something? Why not Christmas or Thanksgiving, or even your birthday? Halloween just seems so random.”

“And my birthday isn't?”

“You know what I mean, Dean. Halloween isn't the kind of day that people decide will be the one day of the year that they spend together unless they're Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter.”

“Maybe it was the only day of the year our schedules matched up,” Dean says a little softer than he meant to. He's thought of this before, even drunkenly ranted about it to Benny and to his mother's grave several times. But he always comes to the same conclusion: if this is the only way he can be with Cas, he'll take it, every single time.

Sam rests a hand on Dean's shoulder, the way he used to when they were kids and he wanted Dean's full attention because he was about to say something he needed Dean to hear. “I'm happy for you, Dean. You know that, right?”

“'Course I do.”

“I mean it. What you and Cas have, the way you look at each other when he's here --” Levi chooses that exact moment to finish his father's sentence with a wail, letting everyone know that he's wide awake now.

Dean stands, ready to go and get him, but Sam holds up his hand. “You had him all day. It's my turn.” Then he disappears down the hall, leaving Dean in the kitchen with his thoughts again. Luckily, his phone goes off in his pocket, giving him a reason to avoid the inevitable. Pulling it out, he finds a text from his agent about an important meeting he has to be at in less than a couple of hours, and it's all the way in the next city over.

“Shit!” He swears, grabbing his keys from the magnetic hook on the side of the fridge and uncapping the marker next to the shopping list tablet on the front. He jots down a small, cheesy poem for Elaine (Roses are red, violets are blue, I'll rescue Captain Rogers the next time I play with you. P.S. I love you all the way to Jupiter.) and rushes to the front door, calling out, “Sam, I have to go.”

“Will you be back for dinner?”

“Probably not.”

“Okay, then. Make sure to bring Castiel by tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

Dean speeds off in his car before his agent decides that it's a good idea to drop him.

****

Dean had never planned to be a writer. When he graduated high school he had every intention to major in engineering and get a job working with computers – preferably ones that went into cars. Things changed when his girlfriend at the time, Arianna, caught him writing a kid's book. It was just a story his mother used to tell him as a bedtime story when he was younger, but Arianna had made fun of him for it, calling him a sensitive little flower. Normally he wouldn't have taken offense to it, but the story he'd been writing was special to him and the only reason he'd even been writing it down in the first place was to remember his mother, who had died the year before. It made him feel close to her to write down the stories she'd told him as a kid; it was the only thing, besides talking to Sam, that had kept him sane enough to stay in school the way he had promised his mother he would.

So Dean dumped Arianna a week later and put even more effort into making the stories the best things he could make them. He took up creative writing electives and went to a couple of free workshops and book signings with friends, all the while filling notebook after notebook with his mother's stories. Then one night after an amazing bout of sex with Rick, his boyfriend after Arianna, Dean did something he'd never done before. He asked Rick if he wanted to hear one of the stories. Rick said hell yeah, in the most enthusiastic way he could while being so worn out and sated, and Dean picked one at random and began to read.

When Dean finished, Rick was propped up on his elbow, a wide smile stretching his mouth.

“You wrote that?” he asked.

Dean nodded, blushing profusely.

“It's so good.” Rick said. “Like, really, really fucking good. You should send it out and get it published.”

“I don't –“

“Trust me, Dean, as an English Major myself, it is really good. And I'm kind of envious now.”

Dean laughed nervously and kissed Rick to make him stop with the compliments.

“I know you love building things, but have you ever thought of majoring in English?” Rick asked between kisses. “You're an English Professor's wet dream, man. They would eat you up.”

“Thought that was your job?” Dean challenged, knowing that it would be the perfect way to switch Rick away from showering him with praises.

“Oh it is,” Rick said, pressing Dean's back to the mattress and sucking a hickey onto his collarbone. “But just promise me you'll at least think about switching majors, or at least minoring in it, okay?”

“If I say yes, will you fuck me?”

“Are you saying yes?”

Dean rolled his eyes, but laughed. “Ugh, fine, yes. I promise.”

“Good, now turn over.”

Two days later Dean showed his work to one of Rick's professors who swore up and down that with a few minor cosmetic changes, Dean's stories could be bestsellers and earn him bank. Dean didn't care much about the money; he just wanted everyone to love his mother's tales as much as he did. Dean told the professor as much and the man smiled at him, genuine admiration leaking from his every pore.

“Isn't that why we write, son?”

Dean agreed and a week later he changed his major to English and added engineering as his minor. A month later, with the help of Rick's professor – Bobby Singer – Dean sent out his first manuscript.

He was rejected three times before he got a call from his current agent's daughter, Jo, saying that they had to meet in twenty minutes at some – literally – underground cafe because they needed to see him in person before her mother agreed to represent him. Dean thought it was a prank call at first, but after getting the woman's name and looking it up online, it turned out she was legit. So Dean sped to the cafe and made it there with three minutes to spare. He almost regretted not cleaning up a little better when he stepped out of his car, but one look at the interior of the cafe, with its dim lights and classic rock blaring from the speakers, and at Jo who bound toward him like she owned the place, he knew that no one was going to give two shits about the holes in his jeans or the band on his t-shirt.

Dean doesn't remember much about the initial meeting, just that it lasted about ten minutes and then he was leaving with a stack of papers that Jo and her mother, Ellen, demanded that he read completely, cover to cover – preferably with someone who knew the publishing business – before deciding whether or not Roadhouse Publishing would be a good fit for him.

Stunned, and feeling like he'd been hit by a cyclone in the form of a perky, but sarcastic blonde and her sweet, kick-ass-and-take-no-names mother, Dean took the contract straight to Bobby and looked it over with him for the next two days, getting Bobby to explain it in the the clearest terms, as if he was five. Dean sat on it for two more days after that, still a bit shell shocked by how many zeroes he was seeing in the advance being offered. Then, after talking to Sam about it, Dean called them the next day and agreed to have Ellen (and Jo, by proxy) be his agent.

That was almost ten years ago. Now Dean is sitting in an uncomfortable chair next the other authors of Roadhouse Publishing, as Pamela Barnes, the Executive Supervisor and part-time fourth agent, goes on about the annual trends in literature and what's selling and not selling. Dean knows for a fact that she hates these meetings as much as he does, but it's a company policy for everyone to come together for one yearly meeting instead of constantly emailing each other, which Dean would prefer.

“We're a family here, boy,” Ellen had snapped once after Dean had complained about how boring and unnecessary the meetings were. “These meetings are about coming together like one and reminding each other that we're all here, alive and well, and not just robots behind a computer.” Dean didn't complain after that, but he didn't enjoy the meetings any more than he had originally, either.

Pamela's spiel goes on for about twenty minutes and then she dismisses everyone to the other conference room where Ellen's already set up a huge banquet of food she cooked herself. Led Zeppelin plays on the classic jukebox that Dean knows belongs to Jo as he makes a beeline to the pie table. He loads up a plate with four different pies – wondering how in the world Ellen found time to make all of them by herself – when a hand rests on the small of his back.

“So,” Pamela says coolly “Tomorrow is Halloween.”

“It is,” Dean says. He heads to an empty table and Pamela follows him, sitting down beside him.

“Which means you get to see that cute little husband of yours, right?”

“We're not married.” Dean scoops a forkful of cherry pie into his mouth, practically moaning as the cherries explode on his tongue.

“But you kind of are,” Pamela says. She digs her finger into a piece of chocolate pie and sucks her finger into her mouth ignoring Dean's grunt of protest.

“Neither of us have ever proposed to each other, so no, we're not married,” Dean says around another mouthful. “But yes, he will be here tomorrow.”

“How does that work, exactly? I mean is it an open relationship since you only see each other once a year, or are you totally monogamous?”

Dean sighs, tired of having to answer this question whenever his relationship with Cas is brought up. He goes for, “It's complicated,” instead.

“Will you at least tell me how you met?” Pamela asks, just like she's done every years since they've known each other.

“Nope.”

Pamela laughs and takes another finger-scoop of his pie, this time the lemon. “One day, Winchester.” Then she stands and heads over to one of the other writers in the family, leaving Dean to his own devices.

Dean uses his time alone to take in the people around him, trying to keep his mind from stirring up the butterflies wanting to evolve into bats inside his stomach the closer it gets to midnight. On one side of the room stands Garth talking animatedly with his two writers: Ash, who writes hi-tech cyberpunk stories about hackers, and Chuck, who writes a series about two monster hunting brothers on a road trip to find their dad. Dean's been a fan of Ash long before he became part of The Roadhouse, and has several of Ash's books on his shelves at home, but Dean's never been able to get into Chuck's books, no matter how hard he tries; there was something about Chuck's writing and his characters that rubs Dean the wrong way and makes him want to throw the books out a window, but Dean can't quite put a finger on what it is exactly.

The next person to catch his eye is Abaddon, the harshest agent Dean has ever come in contact with in all the years he'd been with The Roadhouse. She rejects people left and right, and has made several people cry because of her scathing comments about just how craptastic she thinks their book is; there's even a blog filled with all the rejection letters she's sent over the years, but Dean has never been able to tell if it's a warning to other writers to stay away or a challenge to see who can get past the Queen Bee's armor. Abaddon's writers, Meg and Ruby, got signed on for the pure fact that they both can write incredible BDSM erotica novels with strong female characters that most authors would sell their souls to just be able to imagine. Dean has read both of their work and he is not ashamed in the least to say he's jerked off to several of their scenes.

Pamela's writers, Andy and Ava, are a duo who co-write books that read like graphic novels, except with more words than art. Ava is the artist, and sometimes a writer, and Andy is strictly a writer. Their stories are paranormal, bordering on just plain fucking weird. But there's something absolutely mesmerizing about them, and Dean has found himself getting sucked into the books a couple of times and then wondering how the hell he'd wasted three hours on a book he'd planned on skimming through. Sometimes, Dean is sure that both Ava and Andy have some kind of superpowers that make them able to control the people around them, making others fall into the world the two of them created and never wanting to leave.

The last writer, besides himself, stands next to the jukebox, sipping something dark that has to be fruit juice because Dean has never seen the kid drink any kind of alcohol ever. His name is Samandriel and he's Ellen's only other writer besides Dean, and also the newest addition to the company. His book is about angels, the ones from the Bible, but a hell of a lot more dickish and mean. Normally Dean would skip over a book like that in a heartbeat, but Jo and Ellen don't just take on any kind of writer; their words have to move both of them in a way that makes them decide to take a chance. And Dean has to say that Samandriel has talent, golden and raw like Dean hasn't seen in a long time. The kid's words make Dean feel like he's standing right with the angels as they take on humanity and try to save their precious heaven from being overtaken by demons. It stirs something inside Dean when he reads it, making him ache for the main character and just wanting the best for the dude even though he's the biggest asshole Dean has ever read. He realizes that he's never told Samandriel that before and watches the kid for a moment longer before looking up at the clock. Shit, how did it get to be ten already?

Dean gets up heads over to Ellen and Jo, who're laughing with Pamela. “I gotta head out,” he tells them quickly.

Pamela looks at her watch and grins. “Late night date, huh?”

“Yes.” He hugs Ellen and kisses Jo and Pamela on their cheeks, then turns and heads toward the front door. “Love you guys. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Stay in bed if you're too sore,” Jo calls out after him. He flips her off, earning him a laugh from all three of them.

****

Dean gets home at a quarter till midnight and gets right down to what he wants to do. He finds the candles they used from last year and sets them up in the bedroom, lighting them all until the entire room glows, highlighting the antique floor to ceiling mirror he keeps covered every day of the year, except one.

Dean's stomach is in knots as his fingers touch the black sheet covering the mirror. He closes his hands into fists in the fabric and reminds himself to breath as he tugs it off and drops it to the floor. He's been doing this for nine years now, but it never gets easier – he is always so scared that nothing will happen when the clock hits midnight. But Castiel has never stood him up before, though, not even when Dean gave him every reason to. So when the alarm clock on the nightstand reads 11:59, Dean turns his back to the mirror and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and exhales at the same time that he looks at the clock again to watch it change to 12:00.

The air shifts, static raising the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck and sending a shiver down his spine as a too familiar voice says, “Hello, Dean.”


End file.
